The Empty ChildThe Doctor Dances Novelisation
by Josman
Summary: Pursuing a mysterious object through space and time, The Doctor is forced to land in the middle of the London Blitz, where a figure in gas masks is stalking the lost children of the city. Meanwhile, Rose finds they may not be the only time travelers in town.
1. Bomben Auf England

**And so on to Series 1's most famous story and the one that introduced Moffat to the revised series. I just hope this goes right. **

**Disclaimer: I asked if I could have ownership of Doctor Who. The BBC said they had nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat. Very weird people.**

* * *

**The Empty Child:**

**Chapter 1 - Bomben Auf England**

The floor of the TARDIS shook and shuddered as though in an earthquake. Rose ran into the console room, to find the Doctor hammering at buttons and leavers, while a screen on the wall flashed the word _Alert, _repeatedly.

"What's the alert?" She shouted.

"It's mauve!" He replied, pointing to the scanner, which showed a strange cylindrical object hurtling through several star clusters, the TARDIS in hot pursuit

"Mauve?"

"Universally recognised code for danger!"

"What happened to red?"

"Red's just humans. To the rest of the universe, red's camp. Oh the misunderstandings, all those red alerts, all that dancing!" He nodded to the object on screen. "It's got a very basic flight pattern so I've hacked it into the TARDIS! Wherever it goes, we go!"

"And that's safe is it?"

"Yeah, completely safe!" He reached over to flick the yellow stabilisers, only for them to choose that moment to burn out and shoot a jet of sparks into his hand. He hurriedly pressed it against one of the cooling valves. "Ok reasonably, I should've said reasonably there!"

On the scanner, the cylinder was abruptly swallowed up by a blue glow. The TARDIS followed seconds later, the two craft went hurtling down that long, translucent-blue tunnel which the Doctor referred to as the time vortex.

"No, no, no! It's jumping time tracks!" The Doctor cried. He watched it getting smaller and smaller on the screen, they were still on its trail but they were losing ground.

"What is this thing?" Shouted Rose.

"I've got no idea!"

"Then why're we chasing it?"

"It's mauve and dangerous... And about 30 seconds from the centre of London."

The craft exited the vortex and screamed towards planet Earth. The TARDIS following behind.

* * *

The Doctor stepped out, into a quiet alleyway. The first thing that occurred to him was that this part of London was surprisingly dark, he guessed they must have landed before the invention of streetlights. He looked around, the only other creature he could see was a cat, sat on a wall wondering if the Doctor would feed it.

"Do you know how long we can knock about space and time before we have to return to Earth?" He said to his companion.

"Three days? Assuming we don't run out of milk."

He sighed. "All the species in in the universe and it has to come out of a cow." He walked down the alleyway, looking for signs of life. "We're not far away, maybe a mile. Must've landed a few weeks after it, maybe a month.

"A month? We were just behind it."

"It's jumping time tracks all over the place, we were bound to be a little bit out. Do you want to drive?"

"I could have a go." She grinned. "How much is a little bit?"

"A bit."

"How big a bit?"

"Just a bit."

She sighed. "So what's the plan then? You gonna do a scan for alien tech?"

He raised an eyebrow "Rose, it hit the middle of London with a loud bang. I'm gonna ask." He showed her the psychic paper, reading _Doctor John Smith. Ministry of Asteroids._

He found a door, ladled _deliveries only_ and put his ear to it. "Music, door, people. What do you think?"

"I think, would it kill you to do a scan for alien tech? Just give me some Spock!"

He looked up from sonicing the door and pondered for a moment. "Are you sure about that shirt?"

Rose looked down at the shirt she'd found in the TARDIS wardrobe. The one with a Union Flag splashed over the front, and another at the back. "Just taking it out for a spin." She shrugged.

"Mu-mmy." Called a soft voice. "Mu-mmy." It seemed to be coming from above.

The Doctor had got the door open. "Come on in if you're coming. Won't take a minute."

Rose decided against it. She was curiously peering around the tops of walls and the roofs for this strange voice, calling for its mum.

"Mummy." He called again. Now she spotted the owner of the voice, a child in a gas mask stood up on the edge of a flat roof three stories up.

"Doctor, there's a kid up there!" She called, but the Doctor had disappeared inside.

* * *

The Doctor was surprised to find that the interior was electrically lit, albeit dimly. He followed the sound of cabaret music down the corridor, out into a small music hall. Judging by the decor, the clothes and the music he judged this period to be early to mid 20th century.

The band were just finishing their song as the timelord walked in. He clapped along with the others then stepped up onto the stage himself.

"Excuse me!" He said into the mike. "Could I have everyone's attention, just for a mo', I'll be quick. Hello! Might seem like a stupid question, but has anything fallen from the sky recently?"

The audience were silent for a moment, then burst out laughing. The Doctor frowned. That wasn't the response he'd been expecting.

* * *

Rose ran up a fire escape and across a flat rooftop, to where the child was standing on a raised platform. "Are you alright up there?" She shouted.

"Mummy?" Said the child.

"Hold on, don't move!" She looked at the wall, but it was completely flat, no way of scaling it that she could see. That is until a rope swung her way, out of nowhere. She tugged on it, it seemed sturdy enough so she started to climb.

"Sorry have I said something funny?" The Doctor asked the manic crowds. "It's just that there's this thing I need to find, would have landed not long ago..." An air raid siren rang through the room. "Not far from here..." Guests were hurriedly finishing their drinks and stepping up to leave, as someone guided them down to the shelter. "...With a very loud bang." On the wall, he spotted several posters reading things like _Hitler Will Send no Warning, always carry your gas mask _and _Britain Shall Not Burn, Britain's fireguard is Britain's defence._ He'd landed in the middle of the Blitz. That simply wasn't fair!

* * *

Rose hauled herself up, she hadn't climbed a rope since her gymnast days and her muscles were protesting, but she was getting there, kicking off against the wall for help. Before long, she was halfway there.

"Mummy." Said the child. "A balloon." He pointed to the barrage balloon overhead, trailing the cable that Rose was hanging from. Rose didn't have time to register before she kicked out form the wall, but just failed to swing back. She clung on for dear life as the rope tossed her around like a leaf in the wind. By the time she got her bearings, the balloon had drifted away from the rooftop and got caught in an updraft, carrying the helpless girl up into the night sky.

Rose looked out at the blacked-out skyline of London below. The main light came from the searchlights, which occasionally hit other barrage balloons similar to the one she was hanging from.

The sound of air raid sirens rang around her, followed by the roar of propeller-driven aircraft and the blasts of anti-aircraft guns. A squadron of German bombers came swarming up the Thames, straight towards her. Great, she was in the middle of a German air raid, with the union flag splashed across her chest.

* * *

"Rose!" Shouted the Doctor, unaware of her plight, but aware that she was gone from the alleyway. As he looked around, he noticed the same cat from before, voicing its annoyance that the girl had gone off without bringing it any food.

"You know." He said to the cat. "One of these days, I'm gonna meet someone who gets the whole "Don't wander off" thing. 900 years of phone box travel and it's the one thing that would surprise me.

A phone rang nearby. Looking around, he realised the ringing was coming from the phone on the front of the TARDIS. Now that was odd. He pulled the panel open. The phone continued to ring. How could it be ringing? What was he supposed to do with a ringing phone?

"Don't answer it." Said a woman's voice. "It's not for you."

The doctor turned to face a dark haired girl, who looked to be in her late teens. "How do you know that?"

"I just know. And I'm telling ya. Don't answer it."

"Well, since you know so much, tell me this: How could it be ringing?" He pointed back at the box. "It's not even a real phone. It's not connected to..." He turned back to face the girl, but found her gone. He looked back at the phone. He pulled out his sonic, but couldn't think of what exactly to do with it. At a loss for ideas, he simply picked up the phone and held it to his ear.

"Hello. This is the Doctor speaking. How may I help you?"

"Mummy?" Said a soft voice. "Mummy?"

"Who is this?"

"Mummy."

"Who's speaking?"

"Are you my mummy?"

"How did you ring here? It's not a real phone, it's not wired up to anything."

"Mummy!"

An engaged tone sounded from the phone. The Doctor knocked a couple of times on the door. "Rose, are you in there? But no response came.

A crash sounded form down the alleyway. The Doctor ran towards it and round the corner, to see a dustbin rolling across the cobbles. Over a wall, he heard voices shouting.

"Hurry up, into the shelter!" A woman's voice shouted. The Doctor stood on one of the upright dustbins. A middle aged woman, who was surprisingly large for someone who'd been on rationing for several months, was shovelling her kids towards an Anderson shelter at the end of the garden. "Hurry up! No messing. Arthur! Arthur, will you hurry up! Didn't you hear the siren?"

A similarly large man followed her out. "Middle of the bleedin' night. Every night. Don't they eat." He shouted up at the bombers. "Don't you eat!"

"Shut up!" Shouted his wife. "It's an air raid!" She shoved him into the shelter and slammed the door behind them.

As the couple continued to argue, the girl the Doctor had met a minute before emerged from her hiding place in the bushes. She silently made her way up the garden path and through the back door, which the family had left unlocked in their haste.

* * *

Another Heinkel bomber passed under Rose's feet, its slipstream wafting her upwards and forcing her to slide a few feet more down the cable. She could only grip so hard with this numbness spreading up her arms. She'd tried to loop the rope around a limb, but she needed both hands to keep grip, and couldn't make any practical loop without letting go.

Ahead of her, she saw s trigger-happy German gunner shooting tracer fire into another barrage balloon nearby, lighting it up like the Hindenburg. Behind her, a Hurricane swooped over to engage the bomber head on, spraying it with machine gun fire. Narrowly missing the girl as it did so.

* * *

In a mess hall, not far away an army Sergeant called Algy was finishing off his drink, as the others cleared out. All except the American air force captain. One of 12 American pilots who'd come over to fight, something he admired them for. With the rest of the country being frustratingly neutral, these people risked losing their citizenship if their government ever found out what they were doing.

The American, Captain Jack Harkness was his name. was stood on the balcony, peering up at the night sky through a pair of binoculars.

"Jack, are you coming down to the shelter?" Algy asked him. "I'm probably not 'cos I've got this blasted guard duty to do." He followed the Captain's eye line skyward. In particular, he was following a stray barrage balloon. "Barrage balloon. Don't you RAF boys use them for target practice?"

Jack wasn't listening, he was zooming in on the girl hanging from the balloon. "Nice bottom." He commented.

Algy, who'd turned to go thinking Jack wouldn't say anything, blinked in surprise. "Jack, time and a place." He said quietly. "Anyway, don't you think we should be going?"

Jack finally stepped away from the balcony. "Sorry old man, got to meet a girl. But you've got an excellent bottom too." He gave it a pat as he walked by. Algy supposed he couldn't get too annoyed at the man's behaviour, given circumstances.

* * *

The young woman looked around the kitchen. She looked for tinned food first, since it needed to sit at the bottom of the bag. Looking in a cupboard, she found several tins of baked beans, some spam and some corned beef. She looked in the bread bin and found half a loaf, along with a third of a fruitcake, wrapped in tin foil. There was still some space in the bag so she grabbed a can of syrup she'd spotted in the cupboard. She wouldn't need it, but it would make a nice treat. Plus she could tell from how well stocked the kitchen was that this family weren't exactly digging for victory anyway. They could easily replace everything.

Making her way to the front door, she just happened to glance into the dining room and smiled. She propped the front door open with her bag and went out into the street. Once there she whistled twice in each direction, before going back inside, picking up the carving knife from the table and slicing into the large pork roast on the table.

Two boys she recognised as Jim and Ernie followed her in.

"There many kids out there?" She said.

"Yes miss." Said Jim, as the two of them grabbed at the full table of food.

"Oy! Still carving." She said. "Sit and wait."

Jim and Ernie meekly obeyed. "Look at all this." Said Ernie." Bet it's off the black market."

"That's enough!"

* * *

Rose was nearly at the end of the rope. The biting cold meant that the feeling had gone from her hands ages ago. Only massive concentration had allowed her to keep gripping, seeing some blood decorating the lengths she had already slid down, she realised that it was going to really hurt when she got the feeling back. If she got the feeling back.

As another bomber passed by her, an anti aircraft battery blasted at it. The flak shell exploded close enough to catch Rose on the edge of its shockwave, which threw her sideways. The last few inches of rope slid from her grip, sending her plummeting towards the ground, a quarter of a mile below.

* * *

**Author's Notes: Wikipedia gives the number of American Pilots in the Battle of Britain as 11. Jack being a fictional character, I've listed it as 12.**


	2. The Child

**Chapter 2: The Child:**

Rose plummeted downwards, watching the ground rushing up towards her. But, all of a sudden, it stopped as a strange blue glow enveloped her.

"OK, OK. I've got you." Announced an American voice.

Rose instinctively flailed to grab on to something, but the middle of the sky yielded nothing. She still felt as though she was falling. She just wasn't moving anywhere. She looked down this straight tunnel, with blue glowing walls. "Who's got me? And, you know, how?"

"Captain Jack Harness. I'm just programming a descent pattern. Keep as still as you can. Don't put your hands outside the light."

"Descent pattern?"

"Could you switch off your cell phone?"

Rose just spluttered at the ridiculousness of the situation.

"No seriously," Jack explained, "it interferes with my instruments."

"You know, no-one ever believes that." She said, but turned it off anyway.

"Thank you, that's much better."

"Oh, that's a relief!" She shouted. "I'm in the middle of a German air raid with the Union Flag across my chest, but hey, my mobile phone's off!"

"I'll be with you in a moment." Jack audibly grinned.

"_Mobile telecommunication device indicates non-teraneous life form._" Said his ship's computer.

"She's not from round here, I know." Said Jack, as he moved to another control panel. He pressed the button for the loudspeaker within the tractor beam. "OK, hold tight."

"To what?" Cried Rose.

"Fair point." He shrugged, and pulled a lever.

Rose suddenly felt as though she was slipping along the world's most frightening water slide, with no tactile sensation from the translucent-blue walls around her, it had little difference from her fall a minute ago. To make matters worse, she could see the end of the tunnel, and there appeared to be nothing there. She closed her eyes in anticipation.

Jack caught the girl in a sort of bridal carry. "It's OK, you're safe now." He assured her.

Rose opened her eyes again, and promptly got a very entranced look. "Hello."

"You OK? The tractor beam can scramble your head." He gently placed her standing on the deck of his ship.

"Yeah, fine." She said vaguely. "I hope you weren't expecting me to faint or something."

"You sure, you look a little dizzy?"

"What about you? You're not even in focus!" She laughed and promptly fainted. Jack caught her and moved her over to the nearest bunk.

* * *

The sounds of explosions echoed from all round the city as the German bombs rained down. But the children scurrying along the street never paid attention any more. They'd been hearing that sound every night since they'd been on the streets. There was no-where particularly safe for them to go anyway. Their only thought was food. They so rarely had a decent meal. But word had got around of a girl called Nancy who could provide some, free of charge.

Steven made his way to the house his friend had directed him to, pausing briefly to tie his shoelace. He failed to notice another child, watching motionlessly from the shadows across the street.

His shoelace tied, he hurried in through the front door and followed his friend into the dining room. He found the girl Russell had told him about, finishing carving the large joint of pork on the table.

"It's got to be black market." Ernie was grinning. You don't get all that off coupons.

"Ernie, how many times do I have to say? We are guests at this house." Said Nancy, with maturity beyond her years. "We will not make comments like that. Washing up."

The children gathered round the table laughed, as Steven took the only free seat he could spot. Nancy turned to look at him for a moment. "I've not seen you at one of these things before."

"He told me about them." Steven gestured to Russell.

"Sleeping rough?" She asked.

"Yes miss."

"Alright then." She shrugged. Having filled the plate with pork slices, she passed it to the right. "_One_ slice each. And I want to see everybody chewing."

The children passed it along the line, each taking a slice with a quick "Thank you miss."

"Thank you miss." Said Ernie.

"Thank you miss." Said Steven, as he grabbed his first piece of fresh meat in several months.

"Thank you miss." Said the Doctor, spearing a couple of slices with his fork.

The sudden appearance of an adult at the end of the table caused a cry of alarm from the children, but Nancy quickly calmed them. "It's alright. He shouldn't be here either."

"Good this." Said the Doctor, scooping some apple sauce onto his plate. "Has anyone got the salt?"

The children settled down to resume eating.

"So, you lot, what's the story?" Said the Doctor.

"Why do you wanna know that?" Said Ernie.

"Are you a copper?" Said Jim.

"Course not. What's a copper gonna do with you lot? Arrest you for starving?" That got a laugh from the kids. Children always appreciated a funny man. "I make it 1941, you lot shouldn't even be here. You should've been evacuated to the country."

"I was." Said Steven.

"So what happened?"

The boy suddenly avoided everyone's gaze. "There was a man there." He said simply.

"Same with Ernie." Said Jim.

"Shut up!" Ernie snapped. "It's better on the streets anyway, better food. Nancy always brings the best food."

"So that's what you do, is it Nancy?" Said the Doctor. "As soon as an air raid comes, you find a nice family meal, still warm on the table. Whole family down the shelter. You move in and, bingo! Feeding frenzy for the homeless kids of London town. As long as the bombs don't get ya."

She raised an eyebrow. "Something wrong with that?"

"Wrong with that, it's brilliant! Not sure if it's Marxism in action, or a West-End musical."

The kids just looked at him blankly, clearly not understanding the reference.

"Why'd you follow me?" Said Nancy.

"I want to know how a phone that isn't a phone gets a phone call. You seem to be the one to ask."  
Nancy suddenly became very interested in the table. "I did you a favour. Told you not to answer it. That's all I'm saying."

"Alright." He shrugged. "I'm also trying to find a blond in a Union Jack. A specific one," he added to the children, "I didn't just wake up this morning with a craving. Anyone seen a girl like that?"

Nancy marched over and snatched his plate from him, before he'd even taken a bite. "You took two slices!" She snapped at him. "No blondes. No flags. Anything else you want before you leave?"

"Year, there is actually. I'm looking for a bomb that fell recently, only it wasn't a bomb." He began scribbling something on a notepad. "Probably wouldn't've exploded. It would've just buried itself in the ground. And it would have looked something like... this." He held up a rough sketch of the cylinder for everyone to see.

Before anyone could answer, a knock came from the window, followed by a soft voice saying "Mummy?"

The children, who hadn't flinched once as umpteen bombs went off around them, were now filled with looks of utter terror, as though their worst nightmare was knocking on the window, not a small boy in a gas mask.

"Who was the last in?" Breathed Nancy.

"Him." Said Ernie, pointing to the Doctor.

"No, he came round the back. Who came in the front?"

"Me." Said Steven.

"Did you close the door?"

"Erm, I..." Steven couldn't really remember.

With no time to wait for a response, Nancy bolted for the hallway. Indeed, the door was ajar so she slammed it shut and shoved every bolt into place, just as the child's silhouette appeared in the window.

The Doctor was watching events with a look of confusion. "What's this then? It's not easy being the only child left outside in the cold, you know."

"I suppose you'd know." Said Nancy, as she backed away from the door.

"I do actually, yes." Said the Doctor.

"He's not exactly a child."

"Are you my mummy?" Said the child. "Mu-mmy."

Nancy raced past the Doctor, back into the dining room. "Right, everybody out the back garden and over the fence! Move, now come on!" The whole table promptly abandoned their half-finished food and ran, only a 5-year-old girl stayed behind, looking scarred. Nancy promptly shovelled her from her seat and guided her towards the back. "Go on. Think of it as a game, just like chasing. Go!"

The Doctor was even more confused now, he looked back at the door in search of further answers.

"Mummy?" Said the child. "Please let me in Mummy." It stretched a hand through the letter box. A small hand with a y-shaped scar on the back.

"Are you alright out there?" Said the Doctor.

"I'm scared of the bombs Mummy. Please let me in. Mummy?"

A small vase flew across the room and shattered against the child's hand. Nancy having tossed it at him. "Don't let him totch ya!"

"What happens if he torches me?" Said the Doctor.

"He'll make you like him!" She looked away.

"And what's he like then?"

She headed for the back. "I've got to go."

"Nancy, what's he like?"

She stopped where she was. "He's empty."

At this point, the phone in the hallway began to ring.

"It's him." Said Nancy. "He can do that, make phones ring. Just like that police box you saw."

The Doctor picked up the phone. "Are you my Mummy?" Said the child's voice on the other end. Nancy snatched the phone off him and slammed it down.

"Mummy?" The radio turned itself on, the child's voice sounding over the ragtime orchestra that was playing. "Please let me in Mummy. Please let me in." The Doctor fiddled with the frequency. The music and the voice vanished.

"Mu-mmy! Mu-mmy!" The Doctor looked around for this new source of voice and found it on a cupboard by the door. A clockwork monkey with cymbals spoke with the child's voice, bashing in time with the call. "Mu-mmy! Mu-mmy!"

"Look, you stay if you want," Cried Nancy, "I've got to go!" And she fled out the back.

Curiosity got the better of the Doctor and he went back to the door, keen to find out how a scared little child could do all these things and usher such terror from the others.

"Mummy." Said the child. "Please let me in."

"Your Mummy isn't here." Said the Doctor.

"Are you my Mummy?"

"No Mummys here. Nothing but us chickens!" He glanced at the empty hallway behind him. "Well, this chicken."

"I'm scared."

"Why're those other children frightened of you?"

"Please let me in. I'm scared of the bombs." The child said softly.

The Doctor pondered for a moment. The kid's wouldn't leave meals half-finished without a seriously good reason, and the child did seem to have strange abilities. But then he also didn't seem malicious in any way, just misunderstood. At any rate, there was only one way to find out. "OK, I'm opening the door now."


	3. Captain Jack Harkness

**Chapter 3 - Captain Jack Harkness**

The Doctor flipped the locks Nancy had put in place and calmly pulled the door open. The child was gone. He stepped out and looked around the street, but there was no-one there. One way or another, something very strange was happening.

* * *

Rose shook herself awake and took stock of her surroundings. She stepped off the bunk, onto a metal floor. She could tell she was in a vehicle of some kind. Judging by the flashing lights, a space ship. But it was too dim to look round properly. The largest lights in the room came from the cockpit at the end, where the pilot who'd rescued her was reading something off a screen.

"There any lights in here?" She asked the back of his head. He flipped a switch and the whole room lit up. She took a moment to look round the interior, which was lined with sparkly-metallic surfaces and dotted with screens, displaying flashy technical read-outs. It was cramped, the ceiling was barely high enough to stand and the trailing wires showed that it wasn't very well maintained. But, for the large part, it was what spaceship interiors were supposed to look like.

"Hello." Said Jack, spinning round.

"Hello." Said Rose.

"Hello." He said again.

"Let's not start that."

She stepped forward, straitening her hair and her shirt non-too-subtly. "So, um... Who are you then? We've never been properly introduced."

"Fair enough." He pulled an ID from his pocket and handed it to her. "Captain Jack Harkness, 133 Squadron, Royal Air Force, American volunteer."

Rose took a look at the card and smiled. "Liar. This is psychic paper, it tells me whatever you want it to."

"How do you know?"

"One: I have a friend who uses this all the time. And, two: You just handed me a piece of paper which says you're single and you work out."

"Tricky thing psychic paper." Said Jack.

"You can never let your mind wander when you're handing it over." She grinned and gave it back to him.

Jack looked at the paper and grinned. "Oh, you "_sort of have a boyfriend called Mickey_" but consider yourself to be, footloose and fancy free."

"Wha?" Rose just laughed.

"Actually, the word you use is "_available_." And another one, "_very_!""

"Let's just talk without the psychic paper." Said Rose.

"That would probably be best."

He stood up to follow her while she had a further look round the ship. "Nice spaceship." She said. "Very... Spock."

"Who?" Said Jack.

"Guessing you're not a local boy then."

Jack, meanwhile was running a scanner over her from his watch. "A cell phone, a liquid crystal watch and fabrics that won't be around for several decades. Guessing you're not a local girl." Based on what he'd seen, he estimated her origins as early 21st century. That wasn't unusual. Agents were recruited from one end of time to the other. She certainly displayed good knowledge of playing the startled local.

Rose made her way to the flight console, running her eyes over the rows of buttons and switches, most accompanied by multi-coloured lights. She leaned over and looked out the front window. She saw London far below, fires burning from German incendiary bombs. "We're parked in mid air! Can't anyone see us?"

"Nope."

Her hands resting against the ledge below the window, Rose leaned over for a better view. However, the moment she put any weight on her palms, she felt a sharp pain stabbing at them. Inspecting them for the first time, she saw that they'd been rubbed red raw and bleeding.

"Burn your hand on the rope?" Said Jack.

"It's fine." She said, hiding them quickly.

"Here, let me." Said Jack, pulling a medical targeter from a draw. He ran it over the girl's hands where the wounds were. To his surprise, the girl showed a state of confusion at what he was doing. "You can stop acting now." He told her. "I can spot a time agent a mile off."

"Time agent?" Said Rose, then had a thought and nodded, trying to look like she understood what that was. He thought she was someone important, and that would help her find out just who this strange man was.

"Been expecting one of you guys to show up." Jack continued. "Though I wasn't expecting you to arrive by barrage balloon."

"Well, sometimes I get swept off my feet... By balloons I mean!"

"Try to keep your hands still." Said Jack and flicked a switch on the console. A thousand tiny golden specks lit up in the air around them. "Relax." He reassured Rose. "They're harmless." A number of the specks swarmed around her hands, lighting up in a brilliant glowing ball for a few seconds, before scattering away, leaving behind perfectly healthy palms. Jack switched off the system. "Nanogenes. The air in here's full of them. They just repaired three layers of your skin."

"Well, tell them thanks." She laughed.

Jack fetched a bottle of Champagne from a cupboard. "Shall we get down to business then?"

"Business?" Said Rose, suddenly suspicious.

"Have a drink on the balcony, and we can discuss a business proposition." He explained, opening a roof hatch and pulling down a set of stairs. "Bring the glasses up."

The moment Rose stuck her head outside the hatch, she felt as though the whole ship had vanished beneath her, though she could still feel it below, she couldn't see it. Her head was just floating in mid air. Having gotten used to this sort of thing by now, she quickly surmised that the ship was cloaked in some way. She carefully felt the outer hull beneath her hand as she pulled herself up, until she was stood in mid air, still with an apparent absence of support.

She watched as Jack popped the Champagne cork, playfully aiming it at a bomber half a mile away.

"I know I'm standing on something." She said.

He pressed some buttons on his watch and the hull beneath them shimmered into view. In the blackout, no one would spot the ship. Not unless they just happened to aim a spotlight in this direction. They weren't likely to do so, as no aircraft could fly here without probably hitting the building.

"Hold on, you're tethered to Big Ben!" Said Rose.

"First rule of active camouflage, park somewhere you can find it again." Jack grinned.

Rose nodded in supposed understanding.

* * *

Nancy made her way through a gap in the undergrowth and the barbed wire, down to a quiet corner of the rail yard, one the sentries rarely patrolled over at night. She made her way to an old tank engine, which had been taken off the rails while they were clearing the wreckage from the last war and just forgotten about. The longer it sat there rusting, the less likely it was that anyone would do anything about it. It, therefore, made the perfect hiding place for her stolen provisions, as well as a place to sleep during the day.

She stuffed everything into the cold furnace and shut the door. Turning back, she was startled to find the Doctor stood behind her. "How'd you find me?"

"Followed you. It's easy when you've got the nose for it."

"People can't usually follow me if I don't want them to."

"My nose has special powers." He grinned.

"Is that why it's so..." She trailed off.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"What?"

"Nothing!" She grinned for the first time since he'd met her. "Do your ears have special powers too?"

He frowned. "What are you trying to say?"

"Goodnight mister." She turned to leave through the far side of the train.

"Nancy." He called her back. She somehow felt unable to leave him. "There's something chasing you and the other kids. And it started about a month ago. Something fell from the sky, am I right?"

She sighed. "There was a bomb, only it wasn't a bomb. Fell the other side of Limehouse Green Station."

"Take me there."

"No." There were far too many reasons why she had no wish to go back there. She selected the worst she was willing to admit. "There's soldiers there, guarding it. Barbed wire. You'll never get in."

"Try me!"

She thought for a moment. This man seemed to think he could help. She doubted it but if there was even the slimmest chance... "You really want to get in?"

"Yep."

"Then there's someone you want to talk to first."

"Really, who?"

"The doctor."

"Doctor who?" Said the Doctor.

* * *

"I should really be getting back." Said Rose.

"But we're discussing business!" Jack grinned, lounging on a raised section of the hull sipping at his glass.

"This isn't business. This is Champagne."

"I try not to discuss business with a clear head." He downed his glass and stood up to speak to her. "Are you travelling alone?" Rose got that concerned look in her eyes again. "Are you authorised to negotiate payment?"

That was better. Now she really could find out what he was here for. "What would we be negotiating?"

"I have something for the time agency. Something they'd like to buy. Are you empowered to make payment?"

Rose was by now struggling to maintain this pretence. "I should probably talk it over with my... companion."

"Companion?" Said Jack, wondering if that was a euphemism.

"Yeah, he's probably wondering where I've got to."

"He?"

"I must've been gone a while. Do you have the time?"

Jack aimed a small device at the clock tower, which promptly lit up. As luck would have it, he did so just as Big Ben chimed the half-hour mark.

"OK, that was flash." She laughed.

Jack grinned and slid an arm around her waist. "When you say companion, just how disappointed should I be?"

"Um, we're stood on top of a spaceship, in the middle of an air raid. Do you really think it's the best time to be coming on to me?"

Jack pondered for a moment. "Perhaps not."

But, as he turned away, Rose realised she may have lost her chance to talk to him. "Well, it was just a suggestion, that's all."

But Jack was busy fiddling with his flashy-remote-device. "Do you like Glen Miller?" He didn't wait for an answer, he just pressed a button. A speaker on the outside of the spaceship began playing out music from the Glen Miller band. He held his arms out for a dance. Perfectly innocent, probably. Rose shrugged and joined him in a waltz. Jack smiled, customers thought less when you got them relaxed like this.

"It's 1941. Height of the London Blitz. But something else has fallen on London. A fully equipped Chula warship. The last one in existence. Armed to the teeth. And I know where it is. Because I parked it. If the agency can name the right price, I can get it for them. But you have to be quick. Because in two hours, a German bomb's gonna fall on it and destroy it forever. That's the deadline. Now, shall we discuss payment?"

"Do you know, I..." Rose jibbered.

"What?"

"I think you were talking just then." Her eyes had glazed-over. Jack had to restrain the urge to groan. He'd got her too relaxed.

"Two hours, a bomb falls on it. There'll be nothing left but dust and crater."

"Promises promises." She smiled.

"Are you listening to any of this?"

Rose tried to return to a business stance. How did the Doctor make all this undercover work look so easy? She hurriedly called up everything she'd caught from his speech. "You used to be a time agent. Now you're some sort of... freelancer."

"That's a little harsh. I like to think of myself as a criminal!" He grinned, pulling her in.

"I bet you do!" She laughed.

"So, this companion of yours, does he handle the business?"

"Well, I delegate a lot but, yeah."

"Then let's go find him."

"And how you gonna do that?"

"Easy, I'll do a scan for alien tech." He pressed some buttons on his watch, it produced a collection of grid coordinates within the city, which he'd plug into the computer to get a map reference and determine the most likely location.

Rose grinned, glad she'd finally found a professional.

* * *

The Doctor stood on a railway bridge, about half a mile away from the barbed wire fence and out of range of their spotlights. He peered at the site through his binoculars.

"Your bomb should be there." Said Nancy. "Under that tarpaulin. They put the fence up overnight."

The Doctor looked round the sight. About a dozen soldiers, a single barbed wire fence. Not exactly open but it shouldn't be too difficult to find a weak point.

"See that building up there?" Said Nancy. She directed his gaze up at the Albion Hospital. "That's where the doctor is."

He looked over the building. He supposed he may have jumped to the wrong conclusion when she said he should speak to the doctor. Looking close, he wondered what a medical doctor would be doing in there. Even in the midst of the blackout, the building looked strangely dark. This, combined with the numerous _Keep Out_ signs gave the impression of an abandoned building.

"That's not important right now." He said. "Right now, what I'm interested in is getting in there." He gestured back to the bomb sight.

"Talk to the doctor first." She insisted.

"Why?"

"'cos then, maybe you won't want to get in there." As the Doctor continued to peer through his binoculars, she tried to quietly slip away.

But the timelord heard her footsteps. "And where are you going?"

"There was a lot of food in that house. I didn't get a good chance to go through it last time. I've got a lot of mouths to feed." She stopped to explain.

"Can I ask you something? Who did you lose?"

"What?"

"The way you look after all those kids, it's 'cos you lost someone, isn't it? You're doing all this to make up for it." He could sympathise with her quite a lot.

She thought for a moment. "My brother, Jamie. One night, I went out looking for food. The night that thing fell. I told him not to follow me. Told him it was dangerous. But he just..." She trailed off.

"What happened?" Said the Doctor.

She raised an eyebrow. "The middle of an air raid. What do ya think happened?"

He nodded in understanding. He admired her for being so matter-of-fact about everything she'd lost. She recognised that she couldn't just mourn endlessly, she had to move on.

A small clatter of a machine gun overhead caught his attention and he smiled. "Amazing, isn't it?"

"What is?"

"1941. Right now, the German war machine is rolling up the map of Europe. Country after country falling like dominoes. Nothing can stop it. Until one tiny, damp little island says "No! No. Not here." A mouse in front of a lion. You're amazing the lot of you." It was true that other Allied powers would ultimately contribute more to the Axis downfall, as even Churchill had admitted, but heroes weren't necessarily the strongest, or the most capable. Just the bravest. And this nation was in need of admiration for standing virtualy alone and clinging on by their fingernails to keep the war going long enough for events to turn against Germany. "I don't know what you do to Hitler, but you frighten the life out of me!" He knew Nancy had no idea what he was talking about, but it felt good to say this anyway. "Go on then. Do what you've gotta do. Save the world." He grinned.

The Doctor went down towards the hospital. Nancy went the other way. She failed to spot the small figure in a gas mask, following behind.

* * *

**Author's Notes: The Germans launched several dozen bombing raids on London in the First World War, from zeppelins and biplanes. They did as much damage in four years as on a single night of the Blitz, but there was some wreckage caused.**

**I use the term "virtually alone" to refer to Britain, so as not to marginalise the contribution from various foreign resistances and subjects in the empire, who helped with the war effort, even before America and Russia got involved.**


	4. Gas Mask Zombies

**Chapter 4: Gas Mask Zombies**

The gates to the hospital were padlocked with a heavy chain, which the Doctor soniced open. The gate creaked and groaned as he pushed it, as though it had not been open in some time. He also saw that the vegetable gardens in the former flower beds on the hospital grounds were haphazardly overgrown. Had it not been for the light he could now see creeping through gaps in the blackout curtains, he would have thought there was nothing here to see.

He made his way through the door and into a fairly well lit reception. The place was in severe disarray. Personal belongings, medical supplies and half-eaten sandwiches strewn everywhere. But no people. Whatever had happened had happened fast.

He made his way down a corridor, flanked by dimly-lit wards on either side. Selecting a room at random, he stepped in. To his surprise, there were bodies in this room of various sizes and ages, each neatly laid in a bed. He also noticed that all of them were wearing gas masks.

He tried the next ward. The same result. The same rows of neatly bedded bodies, clad in gas masks.

"You'll find them everywhere. Every bed in every ward. Hundreds of them." Said a strained voice behind him.

The Doctor spun round, there was a grey-haired balding man making his way through the doorway. The man looked to be in poor health, whether through age or exhaustion, and had to prop himself up with a stick whenever he took a step.

"Why're they all wearing gas masks?" The Doctor asked.

"They're not." Said the man. "Who are you?"

"I'm er... Here to help. Are you the doctor?"

"Doctor Constantine." He confirmed. "And you are?"

"Nancy sent me." He said evasively.

"Nancy? That means you must have been asking about the bomb." Constantine limped slowly towards the small armchair which stood in the middle of the room. "What do you know about it?"

"Nothing. Why I'm asking. What do you know?"

"Only what it's done." He nodded to the patients.

"These people, they were all caught in the blast?"

"None of them were." Constantine tried to chuckle, but it rapidly transformed into a cough and a splutter. He collapsed into the chair and poured some water from a nearby jug.

"You're very sick." The Doctor observed.

"Dying, I should think." He spluttered. "Thing is, I just haven't had the time. Are you a doctor?"

"I have my moments."

"Have you examined any of the patients?"

"Not yet."

Constantine nodded. The Doctor knew what he wanted. "Don't touch the flesh." He warned.

"Which one?"

"Any one."

The Doctor took his sonic and ran it over the nearest patient. To Constantine, it just looked like a strange torch. "Massive head trauma, mostly to the left side. Partial collapse of the chest cavity, mostly to the right. Scar on the back of the right hand. And the gas mask appears to be fused to the flesh, but I can't see any scaring."

Constantine glanced down at his own right hand, at the Y shaped scar, which had slowly been becoming more prominent over the last hour. He was trying not to think about it. "Examine another."

The Doctor moved on to the next bed. His analysis produced the same results. The same trauma. The same collapsed cavity. The same scar. The same fusion of gas mask and face. "That's impossible."

"Examine another." Constantine shrugged.

The Doctor moved to a bed across the ward. Analysing this new patient produced the same results. An examination of the patient in the next bed was also identical, right down to the shape of the scar on the hand.

"When the bomb fell, there was just one patient with those injuries." Said Constantine. "He was brought here."

"Dead?"

"At first. Within a day, every doctor and nurse who had treated him, who had touched the flesh, had those exact same injuries. By the following morning, the whole ward had those exact same injuries. Within a week, everyone in the hospital had those exact same injuries. Physical injuries as plague." He paused to let that sink in. "What do you suppose was the cause of death?"

"The head trauma?"

"No."

"Asphyxiation?"

"No."

"The collapse of the chest cavity!"

"They're not dead." Constantine illustrated his point by whacking a tin bin with his walking stick. every patient in the room sat bolt-upright, startled awake.

"It's alright." Constantine said, as the Doctor wheeled round in alarm. "They're harmless. They just, sort of, sit there. No heartbeat. No life signs of any kind. They just don't die."

"And no-one's doing anything!" Cried the Doctor, as the patients lay back down. "No-one else is here. Just you?"

"I make them comfortable. What else is there?"

"You're the only one helping them?"

Constantine nodded sadly. "Before this war, I was a father and a grandfather. Now, I am neither. But I'm still a doctor."

"Yeah." The Doctor sighed. "I know the feeling."

"The government's plan is to blow up the hospital. Blame it on a German bomb."

"Probably too late for that."

"I know. It's already spreading. There are isolated cases breaking..." He coughed again, much more fiercely than before, more like he was chocking. The Doctor went to help him but he held his hand out in a "stop." motion. "Stay back! Listen to me. Top floor, room 102." He spluttered. "That's where they took the first victim, the one from the crash site. And you must find Nancy again."

"Nancy?"

"It was her brother. The first victim. She knows more than she's saying. She won't tell me, but she might..." He gasped and clutched his throat. "Mum... mmy. Are you... my... Mum... mmy?"

He gagged, as if throwing up, opening his mouth wide. A large round object began to rise from his throat. As it came into the light, it became clear that it was the air filter for a gas mask, forcing its way out. Very quickly, the remainder of the gas mask began to rise from the skin around the mouth, spreading outwards. Two glass eyepieces formed over Constantine's eyes and straps spread out around his head. Finally, he was left with a full gas mask, growing from his face. He rolled his head to the side, to settle down with the other victims.

"Hello?" Called an American voice from the corridor.

"Hello?" Called Rose's voice.

The Doctor followed the voices out into the corridor. There, he was surprised to find Rose stood with a man in an RAF jacket, waving a 51st century scanner at him.

"There you are." Said Jack. "Hope we're not interrupting. I'm Jack Harkness. Been hearing all about you on the way over."

"He knows." Rose explained. "About us being _time agents_."

The Doctor nodded in understanding.

"Pleasure to meet you Mr Spock." Jack patted him on the back. Getting no response, he stepped into the ward to find somewhere to sit and discuss business.

"Mr Spock?" The Doctor asked Rose.

"What was I supposed to say?" Rose replied. "You don't have a name? Don't you ever get tired of just "Doctor" Doctor who?"

"900 years in, I'm coping. Where've you been. We're in the middle of the London Blitz. It's not a good time for a stroll."

"Who said anything about strolling? I went by barrage balloon. Only way to see an air raid." She added casually.

"What?" The Doctor just blinked in surprise.

"Listen." Said Rose. "What's a Chula warship?"

"Chula?" The Doctor felt as though he'd stumbled upon the key to everything.

* * *

Nancy made her way in through the front door this time. She found the dining room and pondered whether it would be feasible to try and shovel cooked food into her bag.

"Mummy?" Said a familiar voice on the radio. "Please let me in Mummy, I'm scared."

To her continued alarm, she heard the sound of the front door opening and shutting, followed by a small voice calling "Mummy?"

With no time to run, Nancy looked round for a place to hide. She pulled open a cabinet, but there wasn't enough space. The only other option was under the table. She leapt to the floor and lay down on the row of chairs, concealed by the tablecloth.

Two little footsteps proceeded through the hall, stopping at the open door.

* * *

Jack scanned another patient with his wrist scanner. "This doesn't make any sense." He cried. "How could this have happened?"

"What kind of Chula ship landed here?" The Doctor said, accusingly.

"What?" Jack spluttered, then looked around at the rows of victims, realising that the Doctor was implying this was his fault.

"He said it was a warship." Said Rose. "He stole it, parked it somewhere a bomb was goanna fall on it, unless we made him an offer."

"What kind of warship?" The Doctor said.

Jack was at a loss for words. The girl had changed her tune completely when she'd met up with the man, he wondered if she'd been playing him for a fool all along. "Does it matter?" Was all he could think to say. "This had nothing to do with me!"

"This started at the bomb site! It's got everything to do with you!" Shouted the Doctor. "Now what kind of warship?"

"An ambulance!" Jack shouted at last. "Look." He pressed some more buttons on his watch, bringing up a small schematic hologram of the cylinder. "That's what you chased through the time vortex. It's empty, I made sure of it. I wanted to kid you it was valuable. I spotted your ship, love the retro look by the way, threw you the bait..."

"Bait?" Said Rose.

"I wanted to sell it to you, then let the Germans destroy it before you found out it was junk."

"Wait, you said it was a warship?"

"They have ambulances in wars." Jack shrugged. He sighed. Time to extricate himself from this situation. "Look, it's a con. I was conning you. I'm a con man! I thought you were time agents. You're not are you?"

"Just a couple more freelancers." Said Rose.

"Oh, I should have known. The way you're blending in with the local colour. I mean, flag girl was bad enough. But now her companion's dressed like a U boat captain! Anyway, whatever's happening here, it's got nothing to do with me."

"What is happening here?" Said Rose, taking a look at the patients for the first time.

"Human DNA is being re-written, by an idiot." The Doctor replied.

"How?"

"Don't know, some sort of virus. Whatever's causing this, it's dangerous."

* * *

Nancy heard the child's footsteps come closer, saw the tips of his toes under the table. She tried hard to control her breathing.

A bomb a few streets over caused the table to shake and an apple dropped down, right by her head, which the child began to bend down to retrieve. To her relief, however, the apple proceeded to roll across the floor, with the child following behind.

Now was her chance. Nancy scrambled out of her hiding place and made a run for the back door, while the child's back was turned.

But the child somehow perceived her as she went and raised his arm to point at the door, which promptly slammed in her face. Nancy rattled the handle but it wouldn't budge. Meanwhile, the child advanced on her. "Mummy?"

* * *

Jack wasn't sure why he was still there. Logically, he could just leave now and let the Doctor and Rose handle this in their own way. He guessed it was curiosity.

He watched as Rose walked up to one of the patients. At the Doctor's warning, she kept her distance, before leaping back as the patient sat up abruptly.

"Mummy?" Said the patient.

"Mummy? Said a patient in army uniform next to the first.

"What set them off?" said Rose.

"I don't know." The Doctor replied.

The victims began climbing out of bed, each calling for their mother in turn. The time travellers tried to run, but found that a victim in a nurse's uniform and a gas mask was stood in front of the door.

"Are you my mummy?" Said the nurse.

"Mummy?" Said a grey haired woman.

"Mummy?" Said doctor Constantine.

The victims began closing in on them.

* * *

"Mummy?" Said Jamie. "Are you my mummy?"

"You're dead Jamie. You're dead." Nancy pleaded, as though the reasoning would make all this end.

"Are you my mummy!" He insisted, as he advanced closer.

"No. She's not here! It's Nancy. Your sister. Please Jamie. You're dead."

* * *

"Mummy?" Said another patient.

"Mummy?"

"Don't let them touch you." Said the Doctor, as they backed away.

"Mummy?"

"Mummy?"

"Mummy?"

"Mummy?"

"What happens if they touch ya?" Said Rose.

"You're looking at it." He said simply.

"Mummy?"

"Mummy?"

"Mummy?"

"Mummy?"

"Mummy?"

"Mummy?"

"Mummy?"

"Mummy?"

Their backs hit the wall now, as the crowd of gas mask zombies closed in.

"Mummy?"

"Mummy?"

"Mummy?"

"Mummy?"

"Mummy?"

"Mummy?"

"Mummy?"

"Mummy?"

"Mummy?"

"Mummy?"

"Mummy?"

"Mummy?"

"Mummy?"

"Mummy?"

"Mummy?"

"Mummy?"

"Mummy?"

"Mummy?"

"Mummy?"

"Mummy?"

* * *

**Author's Notes: Reviews appreciated, as ever.**


	5. Patient Zero

**The Doctor Dances**

**Chapter 5: Patient Zero**

"Go to your room!" The Doctor said sternly. The victims abruptly stopped in their tracks. "Go to your room! I mean it. I'm very cross. You've made me very angry!" The patients' heads tilted meekly as he said this. "Go! To! Your! Room!"

The patients collectively moved their gaze to the floor, sadly. They turned and slinked off back to their beds, laying down peacefully.

"I'm so glad that worked." Said the Doctor. "Those would've been terrible last words."

* * *

As Nancy backed into the corner, Jamie abruptly stopped where he stood. His head tilted to the side for a moment, before his gaze travelled to the floor. Finally, he turned and left the room, making his way to the front door.

Nancy went to the front window and watched as he made his way down the street. It pained her every time she saw him like this, knowing she couldn't help him. What she should have done to help him before... Unable to cope, she just curled up in the corner, crying.

* * *

"Why are they all wearing gas masks?" Said Rose, as she had a better look at one of the patients.

"They're not." Said Jack. "Those masks are flesh and bone."

But the Doctor was more interested in other things. "How was your con supposed to work?"

"Simple enough, really. I find some harmless piece of space junk. Let the nearest time agent track it back to Earth. Convince him it's valuable. When he's put 50% up front, whoops, German bomb falls on it earlier than I thought. He never gets to see what he's bought. Never knows he's been had. The perfect self cleaning con. The London Blitz is great for self-cleaners. Pompeii's nice if you want a vacation. But you have to set your alarm for volcano day!" He laughed. The Doctor failed to join in. Some people had no sense of fun. "Getting a hint of disapproval from you."

The Doctor nodded. "Take a look round the room. This is what you harmless piece of space junk did."

Jack rolled his eyes in frustration. "It was a burnt out medical transporter. It was empty."

The Doctor ignored him. "Come on Rose, we're going upstairs."

"I even programmed the flight computer so it wouldn't land on anyone!" Jack shouted. "I harmed no-one. I don't know what's happening here but, believe me, I had nothing to do with it."

"I'll tell you what's happening here." Said the Doctor. "You forgot to set your alarm. It's volcano day."

A low pitched alarm filled the air. "What's that?" Said Rose.

"The all clear." Said Jack.

"I wish." Said the Doctor.

* * *

Nancy too heard the all clear. It was only then that she remembered that this wasn't her house and hurried for the back door.

A figure in a gas mask stepped out to block her path. Nancy stepped back in alarm, only for a boy she didn't recognise to pull the gas mask off his face.

"I thought you were Jamie." She sighed and made her way past him.

"Dad!" Shouted the boy.

Nancy had forgotten the boy who lived here. She legged it out, but was promptly grabbed by the man coming up the garden path.

"Back inside!" Roared the man. "You're nicked!"

* * *

Jack had seriously thought about leaving at this point. He never got involved in events, just popped in and out for a bit of dishonest cash. The time agency had reassured him that he was making the universe a better place, but he wasn't convinced. There would always be things wrong with time and space, all you could do was to decide not to care, and try to have a little fun.

Nonetheless, he didn't feel good about leaving these people barking up the wrong tree when their lives were in danger. He'd set them on the right track (whatever that was) then he'd leave.

"Mr Spock?" He called up the stairs.

"Doctor?" Rose called. Apparently that was the real name she called him.

The Doctor peered over the railing from the floor above. "Have you got a blaster?" He asked.

"Sure." Jack grinned. He followed the Doctor upstairs and down a corridor, to a thick metal door.

"The night your space junk landed, someone was brought here." Said the Doctor. "Get it open."

"What's wrong with your sonic screwdriver?" Said Rose.

"Nothing." The Doctor replied.

Jack pulled out his blaster and aimed it at the keyhole. He pulled the trigger and a stream of blue pulses projected from it, vaporising a square foot of door around the lock.

"Sonic blaster, 51st century." The Doctor explained. "From the weapon factories of Vilingard, I believe."

"You've been to the factories?" Said Jack.

"Once."

"They're gone now. Whole reactor went critical. Vaporised the lot."

"Like I said, once." The Doctor grinned. "There's a banana grove there now. I like bananas. Bananas are good." He strode into the room.

Rose looked over the perfect square Jack had cut in the door. "Nice pattern."

"Digital."

"Squareness gun?"

The captain nodded.

"Like it."

They followed the Doctor into the room. Inside was a desk, facing a wall, made up largely of what would once have been a one way mirror. But now the glass lay scattered across the desk and floor. The two seats at the desk were overturned and the shards of several teacups were strewn across the carpet.

"What do you think?" Said the Doctor.

"Something got out of here." Jack shrugged.

"Yeah."

"Something powerful. And angry."

"Powerful and angry." The Doctor nodded.

Whatever it was, it had unlocked the connecting door at some point and Jack now made his way through. The next room was unfurnished, save for the child's bed in the corner. Brightly-coloured drawings were posted everywhere. Jack also noticed a handful of wooden toys lying around.

"A child?" He said. "I suppose this explains "Mummy.""

"But how could a child do this?" Said Rose, looking over the smashed glass.

The Doctor, meanwhile was examining some of the recording equipment on the desk. Finding the right switch, he flicked it. A tape recording sprang into life.

"Do you know where you are?" Said a formal voice.

"Are you my mummy?" Said the child's voice.

"Are you aware of what's around you? Can you see?" Said the psychologist's voice.

"Are you my mummy?"

"What do you want? Do you know..."

"I want my mummy. Are you my mummy? I want my mummy!"

Rose looked round at all the drawings. Every single one was a crudely drawn sketch of a smiling woman with her arms outstretched as if for a hug. Where the child had run out of paper, he'd drawn the same image all over the walls.

"Are you my mummy? Are you my mummy? Mummy? Mummy?"

"Doctor, I've heard this voice before." Said Rose.

"Me too." He nodded.

"Mummy!"

"Always "Are you my mummy?" Like he doesn't know." She said. "Why doesn't he know?"

"Are you there mummy? Mummy?"

* * *

Mr Lloyd fumed as he walked away from the telephone. The police had explained that there was a lot for them to be dealing with in the aftermath of an air raid, not least with another wave expected, so it may be a while before they could get to him. Still, that gave him plenty of time to take out his frustration on the thief he had under citizen's arrest.

"The Police are on their way." He smirked at Nancy. "I _pay_ for the food on this table. The sweat on my brow that food is. The sweat on my brow! Is there anything else you'd like to help yourself to in the meantime? I've got a whole house here you can go through."

Instead of being intimidated, Nancy just smiled. "Yeah, there is actually. Wire cutters. Something that can cut through barbed wire. I know you've got lots of tools here. I've been watching this house for weeks. And I'd like another look round your cupboards. I was in a hurry last time."

Lloyd was startled. Why had this girl taken him literally? "The food on this table..."

"Is a lot of food, isn't it? More than on anyone else's table, in fact. Half this street thinks your Mrs must be fooling around with mr Haverstock, the butcher. But she's not, is she? You are!" She was pleased to see his eyes widen in alarm. "Wire cutters, torch, food please. Oh, and I'd like to use the toilet before I leave." She grinned. "Oh look, there's the sweat on your brow."

Without another word, Lloyd went to find his toolbox.

* * *

The Doctor paced the room as the child's voice continued to call through the speakers.

"Mummy? Please mummy. Mummy!"

"Something in these walls, can you sense it?" Said the Doctor.

"Sense what?" Said Jack.

"Coming out of the walls. Can you feel it!" The Doctor replied.

"Mummy?"

Jack and Rose were just giving him odd looks. The Doctor promptly stopped pacing. "Funny human brains, how do you get around in those things?" He laughed.

"When he's stressed, he likes to insult species." Rose explained to Jack.

"Quiet Rose, I'm thinking!"

"Are you there mummy?"

"Cuts himself shaving." Rose added. "Does half an hour on life forms he's cleverer than."

"Where are you mummy?"

The Doctor had reached an epiphany. "There are these children, living rough round the bombsites. They come out during air raids looking for food."

"Mummy please."

"Suppose one of them was there when this thing landed." The Doctor continued.

"It was a med ship. It was harmless." Said Jack.

"So you keep saying. Suppose it was affected, altered."

"Altered how?" Said Rose.

"I'm here." Said the child's voice.

"It's afraid." Said the Doctor. "Terribly afraid and powerful. It doesn't know it yet, but it will do." He chuckled. "It's got the power of a god and I sent it to its room."

"Mummy? I'm here. Can't you see me?"

All through the Doctor's explanation, a rustling sound had been running in the room. Now it was getting louder. "Doctor?" Said Rose. "What's that noise?"

The Doctor's face fell. "End of the tape. It ran out about 30 seconds ago."

"I'm here now mummy. Can't you see me?"

The Doctor glanced at the child's bed in the corner. "I sent it to its room. This is its room."

"I'm here now." Said the child.

The three of them spun in the direction of the voice, to see the child stood in the doorway. "Mummy?"

"On my signal." Said Jack, "Go for the door."

"Mummy?"

Jack reached for his blaster. "Go now!" He shouted, whipping it out, only to find himself pointing a banana at the child.

The Doctor, meanwhile, directed Jack's blaster at the wall and pulled the trigger, cutting a large square hole. "Get out!" He shouted. "Don't drop the banana!"

"Why not?" Shouted Jack, as they scrambled through the hole.

"Good source of potassium!"

Once on the far side, Jack snatched the blaster back and aimed it at the hole. Another set of blue pulses shot out and the hole repaired itself, putting six inches of brick and plaster between them and the child.

"Nice switch." Jack grinned. Tossing the banana back to the Doctor.

"From the groves of Vilingard." Said the Doctor. "Thought it was appropriate."

"There's really a banana grove there now?"

"Bananas are good." He grinned.

A thump sounded on the far side of the wall, along with a crack. Another thump and the wall began to bulge outwards.

"Come on!" Cried the Doctor. The three of them took off down the corridor, only for a collection of gas-mask clad patients to spill out of the wards ahead of them. They turned and ran the other way but a column of patients marched round the corner to block their way. They backed off, until they, once more, found themselves opposite the wall the child was knocking down.

"It's keeping us here so it can get at us." Said the Doctor.

"It's controlling them!" Cried Jack.

"It is them. It's every human being in this hospital!"


	6. Dance Rivals

**Chapter 6: Dance Rivals**

Jack pulled out his blaster and adopted a defensive stance, turning to cover the corridor one way, while the Doctor could cover it the other. "Ok, I've got a sonic blaster, which can also function as a sonic cannon and a sonic disruptor. Doc, what you got?"

The Doctor rummaged in his pockets. "I've got a sonic... Oh, never mind."

Jack spun back and forth to cover the wall the child was breaking down as well. "A sonic what?"

"It's sonic we'll leave it at that!"

"Disruptor? Cannon? What?"

"It's sonic, alright! I'm totally soniced up!"

"A SONIC WHAT?"

"SCREWDRIVER!" The Doctor shouted at last. Jack abruptly dropped his defensive stance and stared at the Doctor with a look that said _You've got to be kidding me!_

The child stuck again, this time punching a hole it could fit an arm through. Meanwhile, the patients were closing in, each calling "Mummy? Mummy? Mummy? Mummy?" And they suspected that sending them to their rooms wasn't going to work a second time.

With the Doctor and Jack busy comparing tools, it suddenly fell to Rose to think of a way out. Acting on pure instinct, she grabbed Jack's blaster and pointed it at the floor shouting "Going down!"

Before either man had a chance to process what she was doing, the floor abruptly vanished beneath them. The group fell through to a darkened ward below, landing haphazardly on the floor. Jack swung the blaster back to the hole in the ceiling and pulled the trigger, putting the floor back in place, should anyone try to follow them.

He then turned to the Doctor. "Who has a a sonic screwdriver anyway?"

"I do!"

"Lights?" Said Rose looking round the darkened room.

Jack and the Doctor paid her no attention. "Who looks at a screwdriver and thinks to himself "Hmm, how could this be more sonic?""

Rose rolled her eyes and went to look for a switch herself. Trust the men to get caught up in some macho contest when there were more important problems at hand.

"What, you've never been bored? Never had a long night? Never had a lot of cabinets to put up?" Said the Doctor.

Rose finally found the switch. The moment she turned the main light on, a figure sat up in each of the three beds in the ward.

"Mummy?"

"Mummy?"

"Mummy?"

There were two doors to the room. One was between two of the beds and would mean risking being grabbed, so they ran for the other. Jack whipped out his blaster once more, but was rewarded with a high beep when he pulled the trigger.

Jack swore under his breath. "Some of the apps really drain the battery." He groaned.

"Battery?" Cried Rose.

The Doctor, meanwhile, was sonicing the door open. The three of them piled through and found themselves in a deserted doctor's office. Disconcertingly, there were no other doors in this room.

"I was gonna send away for a new battery, but someone blew up the factory!"

"He blew up my work when I first met him." Said Rose. "It's sort of how he says hello."

The Doctor locked the door behind them. "There, that should hold them for a while."

"How? The Wall didn't stop it!" Cried Jack, wondering if these people were even worth helping.

"It's got to find us first!" Come on, we're not done yet." He looked round the room. "Assets?"

Jack sighed and sat in a wheelchair by a bookcase. "Well I've got a banana, and in a pinch you could put up some shelves." He watched the Doctor walk up to a barred window. "Bars concreted in. Seven story drop on the far side."

"And no other exits." Said Rose.

"Well, the assets conversation went in a flash." Jack grinned.

The Doctor stopped and leaned against a wall. "Where'd you pick this one up then?" He asked, not specifically addressing Jack or Rose.

Rose sighed. Jack grinned. "She was hanging from a barrage balloon. I had an invisible spaceship and a tractor beam. I never stood a chance."

The Doctor wasn't sure whether to feel grateful or irritated with this man right now. Rather than think it through, he went to have another look at the window. "Right, point 1: We have to get out of here. Point 2: We can't get out of here. Did I miss anything?"

"Yeah." Said Rose. "Captain Jack just vanished."

The Doctor looked back. Sure enough, the wheelchair Jack had sat in was deserted.

* * *

The whole house had ripped open by a bomb in the garden. Only the walls and ceiling of the dining room remained intact, albeit with no door. It was here that Nancy found the rest of the children gathered. Most were huddled in the corner. The only exceptions were Ernie, who was sat on a box in the middle of the room, and Jim, who was fiddling with a typewriter he'd salvaged from the rubble.

"I thought as much!" She said. "What did I tell ya? Different house every night!"

"We thought you were dead!" Cried Jim. "Or you'd run off."

"I didn't." Grinned Ernie. "I knew you'd come back."

Nancy sighed and distributed her food round the room. Jim, meanwhile had returned to his typing.

"All a load of junk." Ernie muttered. "Think you can read and write now?"

"I'm writing a letter to me dad." Jim replied.

"You don't know how to." He laughed.

"I don't need to. I've got a machine."

"And how you gonna send it to 'im then?"

"I dunno, stick it in an envelope!"

"You don't even know where your dad is!"

Jim ignored him and kept typing anyway, but this got on Nancy's nerves. "Will you stop making that noise!" She snapped.

Jim abandoned his typing, with a glum look.

"I'm sorry Jim." She sighed. "Go on, write your letter to your dad."

Jim smiled and resumed his writing.

"We're sorry." Said Ernie. "We know we should've gone somewhere else but we need you, you see. For the thinking."

Nancy raised an eyebrow. "And what if I never came back? There's a war on, it can happen. People don't always come back. It can happen."

The group were silent for a moment. Even the typing sounds faltered briefly. Rather than respond, Ernie grabbed something he'd seen sticking out of her pocket.

"Wire cutters? What've you got them for?"

Nancy snatched them back. "I need you to think about what you'd do. I'm going down to the bomb sight. The one by the railway station."

"What!" Cried Jim, standing up from his work.

"That's where the first boy got hit. That's where it all started. I have to find out."

"But the child will get you!" Cried Ernie. "Then he'll come for us. He always comes for us!"

"No. You're wrong. He comes for me. He always comes for me!" The room was silent for a long time. Only the sound of keys tapping to be heard. "There are things I haven't told ya. Things I could never tell ya. As long as you're here, with me, you're in danger. Even now, as I'm standing here."

"You're the one that keeps us safe!"

"If you're so safe, then tell me this: Jim's sitting right there, next to you. So who's typing?"

They looked at Jim, who'd taken his place on the box next to Ernie. Then they looked at the typewriter, where the keys were tapping all by themselves. Nancy pulled the paper from the machine, looked at it, and threw it on the floor.

"Is he coming?" Said Ernie.

"As long as you're with me, he's always coming." She sighed and went to leave. She paused at the door for some final words of wisdom. "Plenty of greens. And chew your food!"

Ernie picked up the paper from the floor. Unlike Jim, he knew how to read. It read_ rf j 9w4ru fj asdij fwq4 f joe s jf opiw qer jf p0q uf o' pJW EF J asdfha nfklqer jgfionsl Are you my mummy? Are you my mummy? Are you my mummy? Are you my mummy? Are you my mummy? Are you my mummy? Are you my mummy? Are you my mummy? Are you my mummy? Are you my mummy? Are you my mummy? Are you my mummy? Are you my mummy?_

* * *

Rose finished her thorough sweep of the room. Given the size of the place, that hadn't taken long. "So, Jack's disappeared into thin air. Why is it always the good-looking ones who do that?" She grinned.

The Doctor glared back. "I'm trying hard not to be insulted."

"I meant men... humans." She shrugged.

"Better." Said the time lord.

"Rose, Doctor, can you hear me?" Jack's voice crackled through an old radio on a shelf. "I'm back on my ship. Had to use the emergency teleport. Sorry I couldn't take you two. Working on it. Just sit tight for a bit."

The Doctor turned the radio over in his hands. The power lead had snapped some time ago. "How are you talking to us?"

"Remote power link." Jack replied. "This ship can contact anything with a speaker."

"There's a coincidence."

"What's a coincidence?" Said Rose.

"'cos the child can do that. Contact anything with a speaker. Even the TARDIS phone."

"What, so it can speak to us? Anywhere there's a speaker." Rose said worriedly.

"And I can hear youuuuuuu." Sang the child's voice over the radio. "And I can fiiiiiiiiiinnd you. Coming to fiiiiiinnd you."

"Rose, can you hear that?" Said Jack.

"Yeah."

"I'll block it, hold on."

"Coming to find you mummy. Coming..."

But his voice was cut off as the Glen Miller orchestra sounded through the radio instead.

Rose smiled. "It's our song."

* * *

Nancy had scouted out this sight before and knew just how to get in. She just hadn't had the nerve, or the equipment, before.

She made her way down to the rail yard, using a row of parked carriages as cover. This section of the perimeter was protected by several coils of barbed wire so none of the soldiers bothered to watch that area. It was relatively simple to wait until they were all turned away then dash round the fence to hide behind a platform. The soldiers patrolling the railings at the edge of the platform were looking outwards. None expected to find someone below so none looked.

Nancy crawled along the ground, to find the gap in the railings, hidden by an overhanging bush. The soldiers had zig-zagged the gap with barbed wire, but that was what the wire cutters were for. She cut each strand of the wire and squeezed herself through.

* * *

The Doctor ignored the music and returned to the window, running his sonic over the base of the bars.

"What you doing?" Said Rose.

"Trying to set up a resonation pattern in this concrete. See if I can loosen up the bars." He replied.

"You don't think he's coming back." She smiled.

"I wouldn't bet my life of it." He replied, still focusing on the concrete.

"Why don't you trust him?"

"Why do you?"

"He saved my life. Blokewise, that's up there with flossing."

The Doctor could tell that wasn't the only reason, but decided to keep focusing on the wall.

"I trust him," said Rose, "'cos he's just like you. 'cept with dating and dancing."

Though the Doctor didn't turn away from the concrete, Rose caught the edge of a scowl on his face. "What?"

"Nothing." The Doctor lied.

"What?"

"You just assume..."

"Assume what?"

"You just assume I don't... dance."

"Are you saying you do... dance?"

"900 years old me. You can assume at some point I've danced."

"You?"

"You've got a problem with that?"

"Doesn't the universe implode or something if you dance?"

"Well, I've got the moves but I don't wanna boast!"

Rose grinned. She went over to the radio and turned the music up, before holding her hand out to the Doctor. "Go on then. You've got the moves. Show me your moves."

The Doctor suddenly sounded nervous. "Rose, I'm... trying to resonate concrete."

"Jack'll be back. He can get us out. So go on. The world doesn't end because the Doctor Dances."

The Doctor stepped down from the window at last and took Rose's hands. But instead of taking them gently, he held them under his nose and turned them over for inspection. "Barrage balloon."

"What?" Said Rose, hoping this wasn't some Galifreyan chat-up line.

"You were hanging from a barrage balloon."

"Yeah, about two minutes after you left. 1000 feet above London. Germans everywhere. Union flag across my chest."

"I've travelled with a lot of people, but you're setting new records for jeopardy friendly."

"Is this you dancing? 'cos I've got notes..."

"You were a thousand feet up, hanging from a rope. Your hand should be cut and burned."

"Oh yeah, Captain Jack fixed me up."

"Oh, we're calling him Captain Jack now, are we?"

"Well his name's Jack, and he's a captain... So, yeah."

"He's not really a captain."

Rose smiled "You know what I think? I think you're experiencing captain envy." She took the Doctor's hands properly. "You'll find your feet on the end of your legs, you may care to move them."

"He's not a Captain. He's been de-frocked." The Doctor continued.

"Actually, I quit. No-one takes my frock." Said Jack, shutting off the music.

The two of them looked away from each other. They were no longer in the doctor's office. Instead, stood in the middle of Jack's spaceship.

"You know, most people notice when they've been teleported." Said Jack. "You guys are real sweet. Sorry I took so long. Had to take the nav-com offline to override the teleport safety protocols."

"If you have to spend ten minutes overriding your own protocols, you should probably remember who's ship this is." Said the Doctor.

"I do." Jack grinned. "She was gorgeous. Now, like I said to her, be back in ten minutes." He went to the cockpit to reconnect the control panel.

"This is a Chula ship?" Said the Doctor, largely to take his mind off the way Rose was gazing at Jack.

"Yeah. Like that transporter I showed you. Only this one _is_ fully armed."

The Doctor pressed a button and snapped his fingers. Instantly, a small glowing ball of nanogenes gathered round the burn that the yellow stabilisers had left on his hand. "Nanogenes. The air in here's full of them. They activate when the bulkhead's sealed. Check you out for flaws. Repair any damage." He brushed them away. "Take us to the crash site."

"Soon as I get the nav com back online." Said Jack. "You two just carry on with whatever you were doing."

"We were talking about dancing."

"It didn't look like talking." Jack grinned.

"It didn't feel like dancing." Rose added.

* * *

Nancy crept through the wreckage, keeping to the shadows. Watching the soldiers as intently as she could. Finally, her moment came and she made a dash for the tarpaulin which covered the cylinder, hoping to hide under it while the soldiers backs were turned.

No sooner had she lifted a corner, however, when several searchlights flicked into life and a dozen soldiers levelled their rifles at her.

* * *

The Doctor wasn't sure why he got on so well with Rose. Once again, she was taking a poorly thought out interest in a man who was clearly reckless and irresponsible. He'd openly admitted to being a conman, but she was treating him like some noble outlaw.

"So, you used to be a time agent then?" Rose asked. "And now you're trying to con them?"

"If it makes me sound any better, it's not for the money."

"What is it for then?"

"Woke up one morning, back when I was still working for them. Found they'd stolen two years of my memories. I'd like them back."

"They stole your memories?"

"Two years of my life, I have no idea what I did." He nodded at the Doctor. "Your friend there doesn't trust me. For all I know, he's right not to." A soft beep sounded from the nav-com. "It's back online. Let's head to the crash site. The sooner we get there. The sooner I can show you that this has nothing to do with me."

* * *

Algy was pleased to find that the girl had come quietly. To his surprise, it wasn't until they led her into the mess cabin that she started struggling, it took two soldiers to hold her still.

"Feeling better Jenkins?" He asked the man sat at the table.

"Just a touch." Jenkins coughed.

"Right, lock her up here, Jenkins can keep an eye on her."

"No. Not here. Not with him!" She cried as they handcuffed her to a table leg.

"Shouldn't have broken in if you didn't want to be locked up." Algy sighed. "This is a restricted area miss. I'm going to have to ask you a few questions."

"Found these sir." Said a Lance Corporal, bringing over a set of wire cutters.

"Very professional. You didn't just come here by accident then."

"My brother died here. I wanted to find out what happened to him." She said quickly.

She hoped he'd move her once she'd told him why she was there. Instead, the Sergeant turned to the two men by the door. "Take the men. Search the area. She may not have come alone." He went to join them in their search. "Watch her Jenkins."

"Yes mummy." Said Jenkins.

"Jenkins?"

"I'm sorry mu... sir. I'm just a bit... I don't know."

"Please, lock me up if you must. But not here!" Nancy pleaded.

Algy ignored her and left.

Nancy tugged desperately at her cuffs.

"It's alright miss." Jenkins tried to reassure. "You'll be... You'll be... What's the matter with me!"

"You have to let me go!" Nancy strained to get as far away as she could from the man, within the bounds of the handcuffs.

"Why would I do that?"

"Because you've got a scar on the back of your hand."

Jenkins looked at the y shaped scar, the one that had just appeared without him ever having cut it. "I don't see what that's got to do with anything."

"And you feel like you're goanna be sick, like something's forcing its way up your throat! I know 'cos I've seen it before!"

"What's wrong with me!" He cried.

"In a minute, you won't be you anymore. You won't even remember you. And unless you let me go, it'll happen to me too! Now you have to let me go!"  
"What are you talking about." He groaned as he hunched over the table. Nancy tugged at her cuffs more desperately than ever.

"What's your mother's name?" She said.

"Matilda."

"You got a wife?" She watched him nod. "Wife's name?"

He thought hard. Now that he really thought, he somehow couldn't remember.

"You got kids? What's your name?" Clearly, he couldn't answer. "I'm sorry, It's too late for you but you have to let me go!"

"What do you mmmmmummy... Are you my... mummy?" Jenkins groaned. He wretched as a gas mask began to rise from his throat.


	7. The Crash Site

**Chapter 7: The Crash Site.**

Having landed Jack's spaceship on a deserted loading platform, the Doctor, Jack and Rose made their way between a couple of freight trains, towards the bomb site's main gates. Here, they paused behind a pile of bundles to observe.

"Ah, they've got Algy on duty!" Said Jack. "Must be important."

"We have to get past them." Said the Doctor.

Rose peered at the handful of soldiers patrolling the gates. "Do the words "Distract the guard" appear to move in my direction?" She said, combing her hair with her fingers as she did. She took a step forward but Jack held up an arm to stop her.

"I don't think so." He said.

"I can handle it."

Jack snickered. "I've known him a few weeks. Trust me, you're not his type. I'll distract the guard."

As Jack stepped out from cover, Rose spluttered in surprise. If she'd assumed correctly, Algy and Jack were an item. This never happened in those old war films. She particularly didn't expect it from a man who'd been flirting outrageously with her all evening.

The Doctor, on the other hand was completely unphased. "Relax." He said, reading her expression. "Jack's a 51st century guy. He's a little more flexible when it comes to dancing."

"How flexible?"

"Well, by his time, you lot are spread out across half the galaxy."

"Meaning?"

He smiled. "So many species. So little time..."

"What, so that's our mission when we get out there? We seek new life and... and..."

"Dance!"

Jack climbed through the gap between two trucks so he could get to Algy without any of the other soldiers stopping him. "Hey tiger!" He called to the Sergeant.

Algy turned to him, with a slightly vague expression. "Mummy?"

"No, it's me." He moved so he was standing in better light.

"Mummy?"

"Algy, it's me Jack. See?"

"Jack? Are you my mummy?" Said Algy. At this point, he coughed and gagged as a gas mask began to rise from his throat.

The Doctor rushed forward. "Stay back!"

"You men, keep away!" Jack shouted to two soldiers, who'd run forward to help him. Seeing the Air force captain's uniform and lacking any other authority, the soldiers obeyed.

They looked at the man lying on the ground, a gas mask fused to his face. Not only had he had no apparent contact with another victim but the whole process had taken about half as long as it had with Constantine.

"The effect's accelerating." Said the Doctor. "It's becoming airborne."

"Then what's keeping us safe?" Said Rose.

"Nothing."

Their conversation was cut off as the sound of an air raid siren filled the air.

"Here they come again." Said Jack.

"Didn't you say a bomb was going to fall here?" Said Rose, feeling as though they were wandering towards a smoking volcano.

"Doesn't matter." Said the Doctor. "'cos if this mutation's becoming airborne, we've got hours to go."

"'till what?"

"The end of everything. Of the whole human race, and can anyone else hear singing?"

"Rock a bye baby, on the tree top,

when the wind blows, the cradle will rock,

when the bow breaks, the cradle will fall

down will come baby, cradle and all."

The voice sang the song through again straight away. The Doctor followed it into the mess cabin. Here, he found a frightened-faced Nancy singing to a soldier in a gas mask, with his head laid peacefully on the table.

He motioned for her to move away. She sang another verse of _Rock a Bye Baby_ whilst rattling her handcuffs to show why she couldn't. The Doctor crept up to her and removed the cuffs and the two of them crept out of the room, pausing at the door to finish the song.

At Jack's instruction, the soldiers nudged Algy on to a stretcher, with the aid of some long poles. They then carried him into the mess, careful not to touch the flesh, and dumped him with Jenkins. The Doctor shoved a bit of metal through the door handle then went to the tarpaulin.

"See?" Said Jack, uncovering the cylinder. "It's just an ambulance."

"That's an ambulance?" Said Nancy.

"It's a bit hard to explain." Said Rose. "It's... from another world."

Jack noticed a series of dents and gouges around the seal. "They've been trying to get in."

"They've been trying to get their hands on Hitler's secret weapon." Said the Doctor.

Jack shrugged. Trying to cut through space-age armour with 1940s technology was like a medieval blacksmith trying to break into a bank vault. Nonetheless, he made a note to drop the junk a shorter time before the bomb in future, just to avoid scrambling the timeline. As he pondered this, he pressed some buttons on a keypad by the seal. As he did, a part of the circuitry went up in a puff of smoke.

"That didn't happen last time." Said Jack.

"It hadn't crashed last time." Said the Doctor. "There'll be emergency protocols."

A light began to flash on the keypad, an alarm sounding each time it did.

* * *

In a deserted hallway in the Albion Hospital, the lone figure of the child abruptly swung its head to the side. "Mummy?"

Elsewhere in the hospital and the streets, gas mask victims rose from their beds, and hiding places and walked, almost as one, towards where they had been directed. A whole platoon of gas-mask zombies trooped out of the main doors of the hospital.

* * *

The door to the mess cabin thumped as Jenkins and Algy hammered on the inside. The Doctor promptly sprang into action.

"Jack, secure the main gates!"

"Why?"

"Just do it! Nancy, how did you get in?"

"I cut the wire."

"Show Rose." He tossed his companion the sonic screwdriver. "Set it at 28."

"What's that setting do?" Said Rose.

"Reattaches barbed wire."

Rose fiddled with a dial on the base of the sonic. Having found the right setting, she held it up to the end of the barbed wire and pressed the button. When nothing happened, she touched the ends of the wire together and tried again. The exact frequency destabilised the molecular arrangement of the steel and the two ends formed together like liquid.

"Who are ya?" Said Nancy. "Who are any of ya?"

"You'd never believe me if I told you." Rose replied.

"You just told me that's an ambulance from another world. There's people with gas mask heads running around and the sky's full of Germans dropping bombs on me. Tell me, do you think there's anything left that I wouldn't believe?"

Rose pondered for a moment. "We're time travellers, from the future."

Nancy laughed. "Mad, you are."

"It's true, we have a spaceship..."

"It's not that. Ok, you're time travellers. I believe ya. Believe anything me. But what future?"

Rose noticed that Nancy was looking skyward as she said this. The Luftwaffe were blanketing the sky, like a huge cloud of doom. No matter how many anti-aircraft shells got lobbed at them, they kept on coming, night after night. Tonight, they were particularly targeting this part of London and explosions were sounding barely half a mile away. Even if they could somehow stop the child, they wouldn't save the world.

"Nancy." Said Rose. "I know how this looks. But it isn't the end."

"How can you say that? Look at it!"

"It's not the end of the world or anything. Don't tell the Doctor I said this, but I was born in this city, in about 40 years time. I'm a Londoner, from your future."

"But you're not... German?"

"The Germans don't come here. They don't win. You manage to stop them. You know what? You win!" She grinned at the girl. "Come on. Let's see how the others are getting on."

Another bomb landed, even closer than the last. Jack was tapping at the buttons on the cylinder more fiercely than ever, knowing he had to get out of this place, if not this time, as fast as possible. Finally he found the right combination and the hatch slid open. "See Doctor, empty."

The Doctor wasn't convinced. "What did you expect a Chula medical transporter to be full of? Bandages? Cough drops?" Jack showed no comprehension of what he was implying so he asked Rose. "What do you think?"

"Don't know." She shrugged.

"Yes you do." He held up his hand.

"Nanogenes!"

"Exactly. It wasn't empty. There were billions and billions of nanogenes in there. Enough to rebuild a species."

Jack went pale as cold realisation dawned on him.

"You getting it now captain? When the ship crashes, the nanogenes escape, ready to fix all the cuts and bruises in the world. But what they find first's a dead child, probably killed earlier that night. One wearing a gas mask."

"What, so they brought him back to life?" Said Rose. "They can do that!"

"What's life? A quirk of matter. Nature's way of keeping meat fresh. Nothing to a nanogene. One problem though, these nanogenes aren't like the ones on your spaceship. They've never seen a human being before. All they've got to go on is this one child, and there's not a lot left. But they do what they've been programmed to do. They can't tell what's gas mask and what's skull, but they do their best. Then they spread out, work to be done. 'cos now they think they know what a human being's supposed to look like. Time to fix all the rest. And they won't stop. They won't ever stop! The whole human race is going to be torn down and rebuilt in the form of one terrified child and nothing in the world can stop it!"

Jack looked slightly sick. "I didn't know!" He went to stand away from the others, not daring to look at them. The Doctor, meanwhile, had pulled open a panel and began looking through the controls for any system that wasn't deadlocked.

"Mummy?" Called a voice down the line.

"Mummy?"

"Mummy?" Two more stepped up to join it.

"Mummy?"

"Mummy?"

"Mummy?" Three more appeared from the far side of the enclosure.

Rose looked at the light that was flashing on the cylinder. "It's bringing the gas mask people here!"

"It thinks it's under attack." The Doctor explained. "It's calling in the troops."

"But they're not troops!"

"They are now. 'cos this doesn't just fix you up. It gets you ready for battle."

"Is that why the child's so strong? Why it can hack into the TARDIS phone?"

"All that weapons tech in the hands of a hysterical four year old. And now there's an army of them."

More and more victims began to appear, covering every section of the fence. There was now no way out. They could let the Germans blow them up, or go out to join the gas mask zombies. Somehow, the latter prospect made the former seem like a relief.

* * *

**Author's notes: One change in this chapter, regarding how the sonic can reattach barbed wire. Even though the sonic screwdriver has a lot of special abilities, conjuring barbed wire out of thin air just seems like an ability too far.**


	8. Death and Life

**Chapter 8: Death and Life**

The gas mask people continued to gather in a ring around the fence. But once they'd arrived, they stopped and stood still.

"What're they doing? Why don't they attack?" Said Jack.

"They're good little soldiers, waiting for their general."

"The child?"

"Jamie." Sniffed Nancy.

"What?"

"Not the child, Jamie."

Another bomb fell, this one just beyond the nearest goods train. Even from their distance, they could feel the heat wafting over them, like they were standing by a bonfire.

"How long 'till the bomb falls?" Said Rose.

"Any second." Said Jack.

"What's the matter captain?" The Doctor smirked. "Too close to the volcano for you?"

Nancy had started to sob. "He's just a little boy, a little boy who wants his mummy."

"I know." Said the Doctor. "There's not a four year old alive who wouldn't tear the world apart to save their mummy. And this one can."

"So what do we do?" Cried Rose.

"I've no idea."

"This is all my fault." Nancy sobbed.

"No it's not." The Doctor patted her shoulder.

"Yes it is!"

"But how could it..." Before he could finish he heard the victims gathered round the fence begin to call again.

"Mummy?"

"Mummy?"

"Mummy?"

"Mummy?"

"Mummy?"

"Mummy?"

"Mummy?"

"Mummy?"

"Mummy?"

"Mummy?"

"Mummy?"

"Mummy?"

"Mummy?"

"Mummy?"

"Mummy?"

"Mummy?"

"Mummy?"

The Doctor looked round at them, then down at the crying woman stood before him and rapidly put 1.457208426 and 2.54279157359 together. "Nancy, how old are you? 20? 21? Older than you look, surely."

Nancy didn't respond, she just cried harder.

Another bomb landed, they could see this one explode, further down the line. It was quickly followed by a second, even closer. A large piece of shrapnel cut through one of the gas mask zombies, but the nanogenes quickly repaired the damage.

"Doctor!" Cried Jack. "We've got seconds!"

"Teleport us out!" Cried Rose.

"I can't teleport you guys, the nav-com's back online. It would take too long..."

"Then do what you have to do." The Doctor said, without looking at him.

"Jack!" Pleaded Rose.

Jack opened his mouth as if to say something. When no words came out, he simply touched a button on his wrist strap and vanished. There was no point dying with the others.

"How old were you four years ago?" The Doctor asked Nancy. "15? 16? Old enough to give birth anyway."

Nancy still said nothing, but her sobs gave everything away.

"Teenage single mother in 1937. So you hid. You lied to everyone. Even to Jamie."

The main gates crashed open, revealing Jamie stood there, he marched forward, a mob of gas mask zombies following behind. "Are you my mummy?" He said.

"He's going to keep asking." Said the Doctor. "He'll keep coming. He'll never stop asking. It's time to tell him the truth."

"Mummy?"

Nancy wiped her tears and walked over to the boy.

"Are you my mummy?" Said Jamie.

"Yes." She finally said.

"Mummy?"

"Yes. I am your mummy. I'm here."

"Are you my mummy?"

"I'm here."

"Are you my mummy?" He asked again. He didn't understand. There wasn't enough of him left.

Nancy sobbed again. "Yes, I am your mummy. I will always be your mummy. I am so, so sorry." Overcome by everything, she threw her arms around her son, who responded in kind. A million glowing specks gathered in a ball around the two of them.

"Doctor, what's happening?" Said Rose. She took a step forward but the Doctor stopped her. "Doctor, they're changing her, shouldn't we..."

But the Doctor suddenly looked enthused by what he was seeing. Clumps of nanogenes were gathering, each would pass over the child, followed by Nancy, then move back and forth repeatedly. "Oh, come on, work it out you clever little nanogenes." He laughed. "She's the mother. It's the same DNA. That's got to be enough information!"

Finally, the nanogenes swarmed around Jamie, feeling him wriggle in her arms, Nancy stepped back in surprise. Each of them fell backwards.

The Doctor almost felt this was too good to be true as he approached the boy himself. "Oh, come on. Give me a day like this. Just one..." He reached down and lifted the mask of the boy's face, revealing a ordinary, perfectly healthy boy underneath. The Doctor laughed in glee. And lifted Jamie up in triumph. "They did it! Welcome back! Only 15 years 'till rock and roll, you're goanna love it!"

"What happened?" Said Nancy.

"The nanogenes recognised the dominant DNA. They didn't change you 'cos you changed them. Mother knows best." The Doctor handed the boy back to his mother.

Rose was distracted from the Doctor's triumph by the roar of an approaching aircraft. "Doctor, that bomb!"

"Taken care of it." He grinned.

"How?"

"Psychology."

Rose looked up at the plane as a bomb dropped from it, whistling as it plummeted towards them. But, only a metre from the ground, a bright blue glow enveloped it. The glow came from a long blue tunnel, emitting from a point where Rose now knew Jack's invisible spaceship would be. Seconds later, Jack trans-matted down so he was sitting astride the bomb. He'd finally decided to do something good.

The Doctor looked up, full of glee. Even the words _Böse wolf_ on the side of the bomb couldn't dampen his spirits. "Good man!"

"Doctor, the bomb's commenced detonation!" Jack shouted. "I've put it in stasis, but it won't last long!"

"Change of plan!" Shouted the Doctor. "Don't need the bomb! Can you get rid of it? As safely as you can."

"I can try!" Shouted Jack, then turned to Rose. "Rose, goodbye." With that, he vanished, taking the bomb with him. He reappeared a second later. "By the way, love the t shirt." Then he vanished for good. They heard a roar as his spaceship rocketed away.

The Doctor waved his arms like a wizard casting a spell. Two glowing balls of nanogenes promptly gathered in his hands.

"What're you doing?" Said Rose.

"Emailing the upgrade." He grinned. "You want moves Rose, I'll give you moves!" He waved his arms, shoving the nanogenes away, sending them flying at the other gas mask people.

The whole rail yard promptly lit up in a dazzling golden glow. The victims collapsed to the ground, before coming back up, pulling the gas masks off their faces.

"Everybody lives Rose." The Doctor laughed. "Just this once, everybody lives!"

The newly whole people were looking around the place in confusion. The Doctor spotted Constantine in the crowd and ran up to him.

"Doctor Constantine, who never left his patients. Back on your feet doctor, the world's not ready to do without you just yet. And I don't say I blame it. Here's your patients doctor. All better."

"So it seems." Constantine nodded, noticing that he was finding it much easier to talk than he had in a long time. "But, er, why are we standing in a darkened railway station?"

"Well, budget cut backs, you know? Listen, whatever was wrong with them in the past, I think you'll find they're cured. Just tell them what a great doctor you are. Gotta dash." He left a very confused Constantine stood there.

"Doctor Constantine." A voice behind him got his attention.

"Mrs Hargood. How much better you're looking." He said.

"My leg's grown back! When I come to the 'ospital, I 'ad one leg."

"Well there is a war on, you know. Is it possible you miscounted?"

"Right, you lot!" The Doctor shouted from on top of the cylinder. "Lots to do! Beat the Germans! Save the world! Don't forget the welfare state!" He pressed some buttons. "I'm setting this thing to blow, soon as everyone's clear. History says there was an explosion here. Who am I to argue with history?"

"Usually the first in line." Said Rose.

"Fair point."

* * *

A few hours later, the Doctor and Rose returned to the TARDIS. "The nanogenes will clean up their mess then switch themselves off, 'cos I told 'em to." The Doctor said. "Nancy and Jamie will go to doctor Constantine for help, ditto. All in all, a good night's work!"

"Look at you, beaming away like you're Father Christmas." Rose laughed.

"Who says I'm not? Red bicycle when you were twelve?"

"What?"

The Doctor was too ecstatic to answer her question. "Everybody lives Rose, everybody lives! I need more days like this. Go on, ask me anything. I'm on fire!"

"What about Jack." Said Rose. "Why'd he say goodbye?"

The Doctor's face fell at last.

* * *

"Ok computer." Said Jack. "How long can we keep the bomb in stasis?"

"_Stasis decaying at 90% cycle. Detonation in three minutes._" Said the computer.

"Can we jettison it?"

"_Any attempt to jettison the device will precipitate detonation. 100% probability._"

"Ok, we'll put it in an escape pod."

"_There is no escape pod on board._"

"I see the flaw in that. I'll get in an escape pod."

"_There is no escape pod on board_."

"Did you check everywhere?"

"_Affirmative._"

"UNDER THE SINK?"

"_Affirmative._"

"So, out of 100. Exactly how dead am I?"

"_Termination of Captain Jack Harkness in under two minutes, 100% probability._"

He sighed. "Great. Thanks for the numbers."

"_You're welcome_."

"Ok then, I think we'd better initiate emergency protocol 417."

"_Affirmative._"

The synthesiser produced a glass of Dulkinian boost. It was the closest real life could produce to the pan galactic gargle blaster.

Jack had a sip. "A little too much verbooth. See if I come here again!" He sat back and put his feet up. He contemplated his approaching death. He thought he'd feel horror, or at least frustration. But somehow, it felt good to die doing something heroic. Rather than with the time agency catching up with him. The thought made him laugh. "You know, last time I was sentenced to death, I ordered five hyper vodkas for breakfast. All a bit of a blur after that. I woke up in bed with both my executioners. Lovely couple. They stayed in touch. Can't say that about most executioners." He raised a toast. "Thanks for everything computer. It's been great."

As he downed his drink, he dimly became aware of the sound of music behind him. He looked round to see an open set of doors, with the TARDIS interior beyond.

"Hurry up then!" Rose called.

Jack stood up and rushed through. He didn't even have time to marvel at the TARDIS being bigger on the inside, his attention was drawn to the Doctor and Rose leading each other in a waltz, listening to the same tune he'd played for Rose earlier.

"And turn." Rose said to the Doctor. "That's not bad, try again. And try and not get my arm twisted this time. No extra point for a half Nelson."

"I'm sure I used to know this stuff." The Doctor muttered, before turning to Jack. "Close the door would ya? Your ship's about to blow up. There'll be a draft."

Jack did as instructed.

"Welcome to the TARDIS." Said the Doctor, as he dematerialised.

"Much bigger on the inside." Said Jack.

"You'd better be."

"I think what the Doctor's trying to say," said Rose, "is you may cut in."

At this point, the music reached the fast paced bit.

"Rose." Said the Doctor, dancing round the console. "I've just realised, I can dance!"

"Actually Doctor, I think Jack might like this dance." She smiled.

"I'm sure he would. But who with?"

Rose laughed and went to join the Doctor. Jack watched as they swept each other round the console room, in time with the music. He could get used to this.

* * *

**Author's notes: Apparently it's true that writing about dancing is like dancing about architecture.**

**Next time: Boom Town**


End file.
